Am I a genius?

In the narrow sense, a genius has an IQ of about 140 or above, which is roughly 1 person in 261. That is the sense Lewis Terman used in 1916 when he labelled scores above 140 "near genius or genius". Only a supervised IQ test can tell you your number.

Is your IQ above 140?

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The three-ring quiz

Joseph Renzulli argued that the giftedness that leads to achievement is where three things overlap: above-average ability, task commitment and creativity. This quiz asks five statements about each, so you can see which ring is strongest for you. A statement counts as a match when you choose “Mostly” or “Very me”.

Ability

1.In at least one field, I learn faster than almost everyone I compare myself with.
2.People with real expertise in my field have told me that my work or ideas stood out.
3.I can grasp abstract, difficult material that others find impenetrable.
4.I notice problems or patterns in my field that experienced people overlook.
5.I have finished at or near the top of a group in something that demanded hard thinking, such as exams, competitions or professional work.

Task commitment

6.I keep working on hard problems long after most people would have stopped.
7.I have spent years, not weeks, developing a skill or a project.
8.When I hit a setback I change my method, not my goal.
9.I choose difficult work over easy wins, even when nobody is watching.
10.The work often absorbs me so completely that I lose track of time.

Creativity

11.I regularly come up with ideas or solutions that others had not thought of.
12.I combine ideas from different fields in ways that surprise people.
13.I make things, such as writing, code, art, designs or theories, that did not exist before.
14.I am comfortable being wrong many times on the way to something original.
15.I often question the standard way of doing something and try a different approach.

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Two meanings of genius

In the wider sense, genius means outstanding creative achievement, and IQ is only part of it. Researchers who study eminent people, such as Dean Keith Simonton, find that many acknowledged creators had IQs below 140, and that ability, sustained commitment and original ideas together do more to explain achievement than IQ alone.

Genius as a very high IQ

When Lewis Terman revised the Stanford-Binet in 1916 he labelled scores above 140 “near genius or genius”. That label is historical, and it is the source of the popular idea that genius starts at an IQ of 140. There is no official line. Modern tests describe the top of the scale differently, and scores that high are hard to measure reliably.

Genius as achievement

Historians and psychologists who study genius mostly mean something else: a person whose work changes a field or a culture. Dean Keith Simonton, who has spent a career on the subject, defines genius either as superlative intelligence or as achieved eminence, and points out that the two do not line up neatly. Some acknowledged creative geniuses had IQs below 140.

By that second meaning, nobody can tell you that you are a genius today. It is a judgement about a body of work, made by others, often long after the work is done.

How rare each IQ is

The share of people who reach each IQ, on the standard scale with an average of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

How rare each IQ is (standard scale, mean 100, SD 15)
IQ	Share at or above	About 1 in	Note
115	15.9%	6	One standard deviation above average
120	9.1%	11	Superior
130	2.3%	44	Common threshold for "gifted" (about the top 2%)
135	0.98%	102
140	0.38%	261	Terman's 1916 "near genius or genius" line
145	0.13%	741	Often used for "genius" in popular writing
150	0.043%	2,330
160	0.0032%	31,560	Beyond what most tests can measure

Above about 145 these are extrapolations from a bell curve. Tests have too few people in their norm groups at that level to measure it reliably, and different tests give different numbers for the same person.

What research says about eminent people

Studies of eminent creators and scientists find a pattern. High intelligence helps, particularly for learning and abstract reasoning, but it does not separate the people who change a field from those who are simply very capable. What does is expertise built over years, persistent effort and original thinking.

Older estimates of the IQs of famous historical figures, such as the 1926 study by Catharine Cox, were made retrospectively from biographies and are weak evidence. Our own historical IQ profiles use the same caution: they are estimates with a stated range and level of confidence, not measurements.

How to test the IQ side

Supervised test. The WAIS is the standard adult assessment. A score of 140 or more is rare, and a psychologist will explain the confidence interval around it.
Mensa. Mensa's threshold is the top 2%, which is about 130 to 131. It is not a genius test, but it is a checkable milestone. See the Mensa practice test guide.
Existing scores. The score converters estimate an IQ range from an SAT, ACT, GRE or similar score.
Other people who have been called geniuses. Browse our historical IQ estimates and fictional characters.

Am I a genius? Common questions

What IQ is a genius?

There is no official cut-off. Terman used above 140 in 1916, and popular usage often starts at 140 to 145. At 140, about 1 person in 261 scores higher, and at 145 about 1 in 741.

Can a quiz tell me if I am a genius?

No. Genius is either a very high IQ, which needs a supervised test to measure, or outstanding achievement, which is a judgement made about a body of work. A quiz can only show which of the usual traits you recognise in yourself.

Are geniuses always high IQ?

Not always. Studies of eminent creators find that many had IQs well above average, but not all cleared 140. Sustained effort, expertise and originality matter alongside intelligence.

How rare is an IQ of 160?

About 1 person in 31,574 on a scale with a standard deviation of 15. Tests are unreliable at that level, so figures above about 145 are extrapolations rather than measurements.

Is a high IQ enough to be a genius?

No. High IQ helps with learning and abstract reasoning, but eminent work also needs deep expertise, years of focused effort and original ideas. Many people with high IQs never make anything of historical note.

What is the three-ring model of giftedness?

Joseph Renzulli's model says giftedness of the kind that leads to achievement sits where three things overlap: above-average ability, task commitment and creativity. The quiz on this page is built on it.